Hi people,

I'm a full-time programmer, and I have a little experience with Unity from work.

I'm trying to get started making a FPS. My problem is pretty much lack of a starting point or framework to work within. The kind of things I'm hoping for are:
- Models/animations that handle the basic stuff many games have, e.g. walking/climbing/jumping. Combat would be nice but not required.
- Models to build levels out of, e.g. walls, floors, tables, doors, building facades for a modern city.
- Ability to have pathfinding, and recalculate the pathfinding info when the level changes (at design time).
- A friendlier level editor. I'm no 3D jockey, I need stuff like snap to grid, ensure objects touch the ground, etc.

These are all pretty much solved problems, and I don't have the time, inclination, or (with regards to visual assets) the skill to reinvent the wheel.

My budget is limited here. Unity Pro is out of the question for now, so no built-in Recast/Detour pathfinding (which kills me). I've seen an Advanced Character Controller by Tornado Twins for about 150 which handles walking/jumping/climbing/swimming/picking up. It looks really cool. There are a couple of A* implementations that I've seen, although I don't know what their limitations are. Many sites sell 3D assets for widely varying amounts, with widely varying art styles. Often they aren't rigged for anything.

I have a lot of options, but I don't want to spend my money unwisely and find that what I get is useless for my purposes. I realise that a real game likely needs custom-made models etc, but I want something good enough to show people and get them interested rather than be a try-hard with an idea and nothing to show for it.

Does anybody have positive experiences with such assets to share, or other advice?

Thanks,

JT

hi jefferytitan,

have you been on the assest store in unity and downloaded all the free bits and pieces on there also the tutorials on the unity website come with some very good assests i found a FPS tutorial but its not listed when i visist the website so maybe google unity 3d FPS tutorial that has a few nice models and stuff.

the ones from the asset store and tutorials should be good enough to show people although they may not all be in the same style the can just act as spaceholders until you find the right kind of models you need.

Thanks, I'll have a sift through them. It sounds like they may cover the first two points.

Any ideas on pathfinding or level editing? In particular I dread the idea of having to manually update a connectivity graph for A* every time I alter a level.